Known control cables include an outer cable and an inner cable, which is inserted within the outer cable. The inner cable can be axially moved by being guided along the outer cable.
One end of the outer cable is affixed to a housing of an input side apparatus. The other end of the outer cable is affixed to a housing of an output side apparatus. In addition, one end of the inner cable is affixed to a manipulation member (e.g., a manipulation lever) of the input side apparatus. The other end of the inner cable is affixed to a transmission-receiving member (a member to which movement of the manipulation lever is transmitted) of the output side apparatus. When the manipulation member of the input side apparatus is operated, the inner cable axially moves within the outer cable. Consequently, the movement of the manipulation member is transmitted to the transmission-receiving member of the output side apparatus. As is clear from the above description, a routing arrangement of the inner cable coincides with a routing arrangement of the outer cable. Accordingly, a routing arrangement for the control cable is determined by the routing arrangement for the outer cable.
On the other hand, the control cable (i.e. the outer cable) is required to be laid such that the control cable does not interfere with devices that reside between the input side apparatus and the output side apparatus. For this reason, connecting conditions for both the ends of the outer cable (e.g., connected position, connected angle), conditions for an intermediate point at which the outer cable is clamped (e.g., clamping position and clamping manner), and other conditions are variously altered.
However, it is difficult to predict the routing arrangement for the control cable from a degree of deformability (a degree of freedom of the routing arrangement) of the control cable. In order to determine the routing arrangement for the control cable, the connecting conditions, the conditions for the intermediate clamping point, and other conditions have to be first determined based on designer's experience. Then, based upon the thus-determined conditions, experimental devices (an input side apparatus and an output side apparatus) are actually formed. Thereafter, the control cable is connected to the experimental devices. If the control cable, when connected to the experimental devices, interferes with other devices, the above stated process will be repeated. Therefore, in order to determine the routing arrangement for the control cable, the formation of experimental devices and evaluation have to be conducted a number of times, which results in a long development period and a high development cost.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide techniques for precisely predicting routing arrangements for control cables.